Elston Grove Historic District Redevelopment

In 2007, Michigan City’s Department of Redevelopment retained the team of JJR and Haas & Associates to develop streetscape guidelines for the Elston Grove Historic District in downtown Michigan City, IN.

This plan engaged the community and assessed its strengths and opportunities for enhancement in an effort to create a holistic document to guide future decision making.

The plan looked at the entire neighborhood, as well as the surrounding areas of influence. It contained the following components:

  • Guiding principles and design concept
  • Streetscape types and hierarchy, including pedestrian- and bicycle-enhanced streets, secondary streets, neighborhood streets and intersections
  • Streetscape elements, such as lighting, site furnishings, paving, fencing and landscaping
  • Image and identity, including pocket parks, gateways and signage
  • Utilities
  • Implementation considerations

In 2010, the City returned to this plan and commissioned the consulting team of Haas & Associates and JJR to implement its improvements with $3 million in Redevelopment Commission TIF funding, recognizing that funding would not be sufficient to implement the entire plan in one phase.

As a first step, the consulting team embarked on a validation task to assess the total cost of implementing all the elements contained in the master plan and to work with the City and Elston Grove neighborhood to determine the best combination of improvements that could be made with the available funding.

A kick-off input meeting took place on January 5, 2011. Each street was studied, and a series of alternatives was developed as outlined in the Alternatives section of this document, which can be found on page 6. These alternatives were reviewed with both parties on January 26, 2011, and a preferred direction was chosen, as depicted in the Preferred Plan section on page 8. This preferred plan constitutes the program or scope of work that will be taken into final design and construction in subsequent months.

 

Project Images

Closer Look